


Devil's Grass

by miraphora



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror, Magical Realism, mild horror more like sinister, plants that will consume the world, songs as power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:09:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraphora/pseuds/miraphora
Summary: She had spent years telling her neighbors to stay off the grass.Someday it would take over the neighborhood.She had told them. Warned them.It was called devil’s grass for a reason.





	Devil's Grass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mirabai0821](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirabai0821/gifts).



> There are some inside jokes in this for Mirabai0821, but otherwise this is just me indulging some creepy plant vibes.
> 
> Originally posted NOVEMBER 22, 2015.

She had spent years telling her neighbors to stay off the grass. 

When she was younger, she had the energy to chase the neighborhood children away, shooing them back to the relative safety of the sidewalk, where the tangled rhizomes made futile forays. She would keep it trimmed, tamed, beaten back.  

It had been months since she had been able to make the proper sacrifices, though. The green blades were creeping out across the cement, throwing out runners, inching along the cracks where any bit of soil lingered. It was insatiable, relentless. She simply didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore, not since the stroke. 

Someday it would take over the neighborhood.

She had told them. Warned them.

It was called devil’s grass for a reason.

* * *

 

The young man reminded her of a man she had known a long time ago, before her hips ached with arthritis, before her hair had gone steel grey and her hands gnarled like old tree roots. He was polite, respectful, but had a cheeky sense of humor that made her worn old heart glad. And he wasn’t afraid of the grass.

The first time he came to see her, he stopped by her dented mailbox, looking at the black-eyed susans and sandsburrs eking out an existence in the shade of the dry-rotted post, looking at the seeded heads of the grass swaying. The first time she saw him, all golden and sun-warmed and fit, she thought he was a ghost. 

Then he asked about the grass, and she thought maybe he was from that homeowner’s whatsit that liked to meddle in her affairs. What did they have to do with her home, she wanted to know. Her daddy bought this house, paid it off in blood and sweat and tears when she was just a little thing, left it to her along with the grass and the things in the cellar and the woods out back that never did settle be it night or day.

She shook her cane at him, the carved figures smooth under her fingers after all these years. But he just smiled, shook his head, ma’am’d her politely, and asked if she wanted him to cut the lawn for her. 

She sat back, hands clasped over the head of her cane, ruminating on that for a bit while he had stood there, still on the sidewalk, well back from the runners spilling over into the verge. Almost like he knew. 

Two days later, the grass was tamed, trimmed, beaten back again. It wasn’t happy about it. She heard the way it rustled, the creeping rhizomes digging deep into the soil, seeking the bones and old dead things deep below. Reaching for strength.

She hummed from the porch, an old song, a secret song. It wasn’t much, but the rustling quieted for a bit.

* * *

 

Sometimes he brought his dog with him. The dog would come to the porch and lay by her feet in her worn slippers, rest his head on top of them. They got cold sometimes, after the stroke. He was a good dog. 

* * *

 

When he showed up one day to battle the grass, he had a cut lip and a scrape on his forehead. They were clean and tended, but still raw. The grass swayed eagerly at the scent of blood, and she clutched her cane, humming, toneless, songs of protection, songs of stillness, songs of silence. 

That was the first time she heard him sing. Songs of praise, golden like the sun, like his hair, songs that made her heart soar, made it fly.  

He made her remember impossible things.

The dog came and sat on the porch at her feet, and she watched the grass surrender before the song.

* * *

 

Even old songs, at the ends of their age, had power. The moon was dark when they came for him again, the ones who had hurt him.

She was on her porch in the deep shadow, hands clasped on her cane, rubbing a familiar groove in the carved figures. The details of the lion’s mane were smooth, silky, under the ball of her thumb. She bided, waited, patient as she had ever been.

They never knew why they turned onto her walkway, the cement bone white in the faint light of stars, cracked and pitted with age. The creeping runners of the grass reached, seized, coaxed, hungry and insatiable. 

Clouds obscured the sky, even the faint light of stars, until it was done.

* * *

 

The grass had grown two lengths the next morning, seed heads all ariot in an unseasonable breeze. 

It would have to be cut again, tamed and trimmed and beaten back.

She smiled down at the dog, who had been at her feet when she woke, damp with dew, feeling the ache of the night’s work in her joints.

The dog gave her a toothy grin around the long bone in his jaws, went back to gnawing contentedly.

She waited for the young man to come and battle the grass.


End file.
